Stripped Bare
by Anguis
Summary: "Stripping tended to make Dudley turn introspective (far more than pubs or churches ever had)." Dudley's a strippergram, Hermione's turning thirty, Ginny and Lavender want to see bulging biceps, and Luna has an idea.


**Pairing:** Dudley/Hermione

**Author's notes:** This was written for the 2013 Dudley Redeemed Fest for wwmrsweasleydo's prompt: "Dudley is a strippergram. He gets booked by a group of witches." It is not epilogue-compliant, nor does it necessarily take into account JKR's headcanon for what happened in between, nor do I apologise for any of that.

I'm hoping that my scene breaks are resistant to ff.n's meddling, but if they disappear at some point, I do apologise and will eventually get around to fixing them (and any other formatting mischief that might creep in).

* * *

**Stripped Bare**

"_Siberia?_" Lavender shivered, partly in indignation and partly because the image of vast expanses of frozen wasteland sent a momentary chill racing down her arms. "Harry and Ron are going to miss their best friend's thirtieth birthday because they're haring off to Siberia?"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "They tried to get clearance for an International Portkey so they could at least take her out for a drink, but Hermione's so bloody _practical_ that she wouldn't hear of it."

"So that's why we're here," Luna explained cheerily.

Over lunch, they debated the merits of various possible birthday celebrations. By the time they split the bill three ways, they had decided on a Muggle Night In—a quiet, casual affair that would hopefully give Hermione the opportunity to relax and forget about the stress of her job in the eye-straining archives of the Spell Research Division for a few hours.

Back in the sunlight of Diagon Alley, Lavender turned to Luna. "Hey, your boyfriend's got a Muggle branch of his business, right?"

Luna narrowed her eyes. "Hermione wouldn't appreciate—"

Ginny interjected, "She was going to spend the night alone. _Reading._ If left completely to her own devices, she'll find herself hidden away in the Hogwarts library and drooling after Filch before the end of her next decade."

Ideas often came to Luna the way that scumbrels flocked to a flame. She didn't know where they came from or how they found her, but she was always glad for the company. This one was particularly illogical—potentially detrimental to Hermione's fond opinion of them, even—yet it promised such a marvelous outcome, and she'd never been one to adhere rigidly to logic and reason at the expense of inspiration.

Meanwhile, her friends were letting their imaginations wander in a predictable direction.

"Tall, dark, and handsome!"

"Or blond!"

"Just not a redhead—I'd rather not be thinking about my brothers."

"Lots of muscles!"

"Big!" Ginny agreed emphatically.

"I'll arrange it." Luna's quiet declaration startled the other two into a somewhat stunned silence that lasted nearly the remaining length of Diagon Alley.

**~o~o~**

Dudley Dursley had followed his father into Grunnings (with the aid of a healthy dose of nepotism). Vernon had swelled with pride, telling anyone who would listen (and even some who wouldn't) about the company's bright future now that his son was preparing to don the mantle of leadership. Then, to his father's utter mortification, Dudley demonstrated a staggering incompetence for managing, bookkeeping, and administrative assisting. He quickly worked his way down the company's ladder of success, coming to rest in the dirty, greasy realms of manual labour, delivering and installing industrial drill presses. He also proved to have a surprisingly deft hand at servicing and repairing the machines, which, although it made him quite valuable to the company, did nothing to redeem him in his father's eyes.

His career path at Grunnings had nearly given his father apoplexy (so much so that one day, Dudley found a transfer to the London branch of the company pinned to his boiler suit—ostensibly to fortify their faltering heavy machinery division, but really just to spare Vernon the painful daily reminder of his son's failure); if they knew about his moonlighting, his parents would probably expire on the spot out of horror and shame.

Dudley glanced again at the order form.

_Big D's Strippergram Service: Read Our Zips!_

Just when he had shaken the dust of Surrey from his feet and shed that name like an outgrown exoskeleton, it came back to haunt him. In this case, the moniker was more ridiculous than intimidating, because his boss, Dennis, was barely five feet tall and not much more than skin and bones. It was supposed to be ironic, Dennis had explained, but Dudley didn't get irony any better now than he had in school. He just regretted how much of a wanker he'd been to encourage the use of that stupid nickname.

**_serious  
__**no talking: message enclosed  
__**maximum clothing (paid)  
__**birthday (female) (30th)  
__**party (5 – 10 females)  
__**private residence_

There was an address for a flat in Charing Cross Road, and Dennis had added a postscript in the blank space at the bottom of the page. _This is a special favour for Luna, so don't fuck it up!_

Since Dennis' girlfriend obviously went for the short, weedy type, it couldn't be her birthday. A friend of hers, then, or maybe a colleague.

"Maximum clothing" included a three-piece suit, coat, muffler, and hat. He was relieved that it was a serious engagement and not a gag. Despite four years in the business, he still had to steel his nerves to start exposing skin, even when he knew that he was being appreciated. When it was a bunch of rowdy drunks trying to have a laugh by embarrassing a prudish 'friend' . . . . He shuddered. Being two or three times the size of one's classmates left marks under the skin that never really went away.

Dudley rolled his broad shoulders and glared at his reflection in the mirror. He wasn't some pansy who'd wilt under a stare or start blubbing at a snicker. Never had been, and he certainly had no intention of beginning now.

**~o~o~**

Those who had grown up in magical families had made their best effort in dressing Muggle, to be sure, but it was just as well that they were spending the night at Hermione's flat and not going out on the town as they had originally intended. Even Hannah and Susan—who, despite much affection for the Muggle parts of their families, spent most of their time in the magical world—were more comfortable in robes than the outfits they'd borrowed from Hannah's teenaged cousin.

Susan had suggested that there was nothing more Muggle than take-away, so white cartons occupied all the flat surfaces that Hermione had grudgingly agreed would not be hurt by a little condensation.

After her initial reluctance, Hermione had relaxed and let enjoyment overtake her. For her birthday, she had treated herself to a rather expensive book on the gatekeeping spells placed on Babylonian lamassu, and she still privately thought that it would be more engrossing than this. However, she was touched by her friends' solicitude.

Even though they could be a bit thick at times, Harry and Ron were steadfast in their devotion to her. She knew that her two best friends would do anything for her (including asking for time off an expedition that was a substantial part of their evaluation for promotion, the daft gits), but it warmed her heart to know that she had other friends who tried to look after her happiness as best they could.

The bell nearly went unheard amidst the snorting laughter accompanying Lavender's tale of trying to find out how Muggle women supported and contained their breasts in what she later discovered was a menswear department.

Luna answered the door.

Dudley had only met her two or three times. Dennis' girlfriend was strange, and that was perhaps too mild of an assessment. However, 'batshit insane' brought to mind Martin's irrationally, furiously jealous bitch of an on-again-off-again girlfriend, and, as far as he could tell, Luna had none of that ugly, grasping insanity.

She beamed up at him, a jingling collection of washers and nuts dangling from her ears. "I was hoping Dennis would send you!"

Bizarre. That was it. Gently, sweetly, unselfconsciously _bizarre_.

His orders had said it was a favour for Luna, but Dudley hadn't thought that she'd actually be there (in retrospect, probably a poor assumption). There was a queasy twist in his stomach. Stripping for strangers—while not exactly easy for him—had become routine, but taking his clothes off in front of people he knew had a horrible awkwardness that he had yet to overcome.

"Hermione's the one in blue, with lots of lovely brown hair."

"Thanks."

Luna picked something invisible off the front of his coat and pinched it between thumb and forefinger, holding them up to her perpetually wide eyes as though there were something there to inspect. "She _will_ like you. I'm sure of it."

He grunted, already mentally rehearsing the proper order of things in the hope of getting it right. On his first solo booking, he'd forgotten to take his shoes off before attempting to remove his trousers. Panicking, he'd wrestled with his trouser legs for the longest thirty seconds of his life before finally managing to loosen his shoes through the fabric. Luckily, his audience had been too plastered to remember what was probably the most incompetent performance in the history of stripping, so Dennis never received the threatened complaint and guilelessly accepted Dudley's tale of a modest success. Dudley had never been good at holding things in his working memory, and he still struggled with sequences of events when performing. Most nights he was able to minimize the damage to small things, like forgetting to take off his hat or leaving his socks behind.

Luna gave him another encouraging smile and led him down the corridor and into the flat's living room.

There was a collective gasp as Dudley strode into the room, and he allowed himself a smug grin behind the folds of his muffler. At a couple inches over six feet, with wide shoulders and a dramatically swirling coat, he had learned how to make an impressive entrance.

His first glance was always to the empty bottles. Here he found a measure of relief. If they'd started the night here, then he had arrived at the golden moment. They'd had just enough alcohol to divest them of most of their self-consciousness, but not so much as to extinguish _all_ inhibitions, good sense, dignity, or consciousness.

Next, he looked for his quarry. A woman in a blue jumper and jeans had jumped to her feet in alarm. Her thick hair was indeed a rather nice, warm shade of brown, and it frothed around her shoulders like caramel-coloured candy floss.

The redhead sitting next to her laid a placating hand on her arm. "It's alright, Hermione. He's here to strip for us . . . for _you_." She smiled brightly.

"He's a _stripper_?" Hermione gaped at Dudley as though he had claimed to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he wondered if he should be offended that the idea of him being a stripper apparently stretched her credulity beyond its limits. Then she continued, "That's . . . objectifying—it's degrading! It takes a person and reduces him to, to a _thing_ to be ogled and drooled over. It's like the subjugation of House—" She choked off the rest of that sentence. "In any case, it's wrong, and I'm not having it."

Shit. This was new. He'd stripped for a few women whose friends had obviously not realised that they possessed some serious moral objections, but none of them had ever had the balls to actually stop the proceedings. They'd sat there, pale and grim-faced, as he did his best to pretend that he was enjoying his work. This would require a slightly more proactive approach.

Dudley approached her, trying (with little success) not to loom intimidatingly. To her credit, she held her ground, even as he took off his hat and caressed the side of her face with its brim, leaning down and whispering in her ear, "Look, I'm sorry this isn't what you wanted for your birthday, but if my clothes don't come off, I don't get paid."

Her fierce glower softened, and she unclenched her fists. He'd always been good at reading people and choosing an appropriate strategy to get his way.

"You don't have to report it, do you?" Her voice lacked conviction.

"You'd ask Luna to lie to her boyfriend?" She was wavering, so he added reassuringly, "Don't worry, I keep my boxers on."

When he'd first applied to the agency, he'd been hopeful. The advert had said that there was a bonus for scars. Finally, after all these years, he could collect on that hairy giant's pain in the arse. Dudley had spent an embarrassing minute in the back office with his bare bum on display, only to have Dennis grumble that he'd have to change the wording to qualify that the bonus was for _sexy_ scars only. His contract (on the whole, a humiliating document detailing aspects of his body he'd never wanted to think of, much less see in writing; it would have put him completely off the idea except for the fact that he couldn't continue to put up with his flatmate stashing substances and girls of dubious legality in their shared living space and needed the promised money to move out on his own) specified that he could only work as a pants-on performer.

Much to Dudley's relief, Hermione yielded with a curt nod and returned to her chair. The muffler and coat were winter-wear, and he was beginning to sweat underneath—he needed to shed them as quickly as possible to avoid unsightly wet patches.

He unwound the muffler with care (he had discovered the hard way that trying the trick he used with his belt only led to an ignominious strangulation) and looped it around the shoulders of a blushing blonde. It wouldn't do to push his luck too early with Hermione. Besides, keeping the rest of the audience engaged, while not strictly part of his professional obligation, made the whole experience considerably easier.

Without a pause, Dudley began to open his coat, using his thumb to thrust each button suggestively through its hole. (The second most difficult thing about being a stripper was not laughing. Toying with his clothing in a way that hinted at sexual activity was just— No, if he let his mind continue down that path, he'd dissolve into giggles, breathing exercises or no. He needed to focus.) He let the heavy fabric slide slowly down his shoulders, then shrugged his arms out of the sleeves and let it fall. He didn't need to look to know that it had landed in an artful heap behind him. It had taken nearly an hour in front of a mirror to perfect that manoeuvre.

Hermione's mouth compressed into a moue of disapproval.

Dudley quirked an eyebrow and grinned. He'd convinced her to let him perform—persuading her to enjoy it would be easy.

He had massive hands to match his stature. He always scrubbed them after work, but traces of the grease in which the machines were packed lingered in the fine lines of his calluses. They were a positive feature in the complicated reckoning of his pay. (The _shifting_ reckoning of his pay. Dennis gave him a printout of how each night's paycheque was calculated. Sometimes his cauliflower ear wound up in the credit column, but more often in the debit; sometimes being clean-shaven was favourable and sometimes not; but his hands always were listed under credit.) He used those hands to good effect now—picking up the coat, shaking it out, and smoothing it down with inordinately sensuous caresses before carefully draping it over the back of an unoccupied chair. His suit jacket went the same way, and Hermione's lips hinted at a smile.

Dudley's focus had been on the birthday girl (woman, really), yet his brain had registered the rather abrupt silencing of the appreciative murmurs and salacious giggling.

Serious gig it might be, but that didn't mean that all (or even most) of the audience would enjoy the show.

Jealousy had been a constant companion of his childhood and even now reared its ugly head more frequently than he would have liked (it was funny how he'd grown to loathe the sour taste rising in his mouth). A familiar, grudging envy of his colleagues in the mainstream branch of the agency now stole over him. They rarely had to put up with the sort of shit he usually encountered (not that they had it easy, by any means, but at least they didn't often have to strip under hostile stares).

In any case, there was work to do, so he slipped on his hard-won mask of confidence as he began the slow unbuttoning of his shirt cuffs.

**~o~o~**

In a corner, their chairs set slightly apart from the rest, Lavender jostled Luna's arm with her elbow and hissed in a low whisper, "I hope you get your money back."

Luna's gaze didn't flicker from the show. "He seems to be earning it well enough."

"But he's not what we asked for!"

Luna smiled benignly. "He's _exactly_ what I asked for."

"What?!" The shrill yelp attracted the attention of all in the room, so Lavender forced her voice back to a whisper. "What do you mean?"

"You told me to find someone big with muscles—and he's not a redhead. I think he fulfills your criteria rather well."

Dudley had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, revealing thick forearms. He calmly bent over Susan, maintaining eye contact with her even as she tried to burrow through the back of her seat. He dropped his large hands to the arms of her chair, which he gripped and attempted to wiggle, as if testing them. Then, without a word, he crouched and—lifting from his thighs—hoisted the chair into the air, his bulging biceps threatening to burst the seams of his dress shirt.

Susan squealed, and the rest of the women held their breath until he had carefully revolved in a slow circle and replaced the chair exactly where it had been standing a few moments previous.

Lavender grudgingly conceded that his muscles were beyond questioning. "But he's—" her voice dropped even further, "—_fat_."

"Of course he is. He's Hermione's birthday present, not yours."

"Who could—"

Luna clapped a delicate hand over Lavender's mouth. "You wouldn't want to spoil Hermione's birthday by finishing that question." She paused and withdrew her hand. "She could probably ask the same about muscle-bound Quidditch stars."

"That's not the same," Lavender objected mutinously.

"He's not my type, either, but what's wrong with someone else finding him attractive?"

Dudley released the straining buttonholes of his waistcoat to reveal a shirt held taut by equally straining buttons.

Lavender's fingers found the scars on her cheek as she muttered bitterly, "Life's not some children's story where everybody has someone out there who loves them just the way they are." Hurrying to head off a remark that Luna had no intention of making, she continued, "Besides, _Hermione_?"

In answer, Luna inclined her head in their friend's direction.

**~o~o~**

Dudley took a vicious pleasure in the slightly squeamish expressions on most of the faces in the room. He traced the outline of his belly with luxuriant strokes, cradling it where it sagged over his belt and finishing with a jiggling flourish.

Dudley the man could do what the boy never could. If he couldn't please every member of the audience, at least _he_ was in control of the reaction he elicited.

He noticed Hermione growing increasingly uncomfortable—not with him, but on his behalf, unless he was badly mistaken. (It made him think fondly of Piers, who used to go a bit mad when people pointed and stared at Dudley and whispered ugly things.) She vacillated between staring raptly at him and frowning at her friends in chagrin.

Shoes (fastidiously untied, rather than carelessly toed off) and socks (rolled neatly and tucked into his shoes) were followed by his trousers. Dudley carried enough of his weight in front of him that he had to make a slight effort to curl around his belly, but he'd lived in this body for so long that it was more an elegant embrace than anything awkward.

Bending also lifted his shirttails to reveal the light blue silk boxer shorts that Dennis claimed brought out the blue in his eyes. Dudley doubted that there was much examination of his eyes once the boxers came into view, but it was easier to humour his boss than to argue the point (and possibly end up wearing something far more objectionable).

The glimpse of his boxers seemed to resolve Hermione's unease. She stood again, stepping forward with such a determined set to her jaw that Dudley stood aside without even thinking.

"I am touched by the . . . thought with which this evening was planned. However, I also am aware that most of you do not share in my predilections. I don't want to spend my birthday making people uncomfortable, so I think that the best course of action is for you," she nodded to her friends, "to withdraw to my bedroom while our guest finishes up. You can find something to watch on the television if you want."

Definitely Piers. In their third year at Smeltings, some of the older boys had declared Dudley's tits to be bigger than those of any girl of their acquaintance and had made it a game to grab them whenever adult supervision was lacking. Dudley hadn't been fast enough to evade them or clever enough to talk them out of it or strong enough to fend them off, so he took to skiving off lessons to use the toilet in peace and learned that he could send his mind elsewhere during those encounters and settled for kicking the firsties around a bit. Not Piers. _He_ had burned incandescently with rage and used his knobbly Smeltings stick in the character-building manner for which it was allegedly intended, developing such a savage skill that it was confiscated by the Christmas holiday to prevent further concussions and his impending expulsion.

The next year, Dudley had taken up boxing.

"Telifishing?" Parvati's interest in Divination had precluded her from taking Muggle Studies, and she hadn't had the inclination to investigate the subject in her spare time.

With a quick finger to her lips, Hermione nodded in Dudley's direction.

"It's in the corner. You can watch a show on it while you're waiting," she said firmly.

Padma looked at her with a shrewd, assessing expression. "But that shouldn't work here, with all—"

Hermione patted her sleeve, flashed a smug smile, and said, "And yet, it does."

Satisfied that her audacious plan appeared to be well on its way towards bearing fruit, Luna quickly led the rest to leave before Padma could start quizzing Hermione about the use of electricity in the presence of magic.

"That one wanted to watch," Dudley observed after the last woman—still wearing his muffler—reluctantly passed through the doorway, taking one final, longing look as she closed the door behind her.

Hermione sighed. "I know. Her husband has been working very hard to lose weight, though. It's not fair to either of them to get her all worked up and then send her home."

"What about you? Is it fair to get you all worked up and then just leave you here?"

It was a risky thing to say. This job was all about making promises with his body that he had no intention of keeping, but the lie was mutually understood (in theory, at least); deviating from the script and even hinting at an actual proposition was strictly forbidden under the terms of his contract.

Her lips twitched. "I've been in worse circumstances. I think I'll live."

"Ah. Good." He could've smacked himself on the forehead. There was a reason another part of his contract stated that he was not to be hired for jobs that required speaking. Not only did he have a pretty undistinguished voice, but he also couldn't rely on his brain to produce witty repartee suitable to the occasion. He fumbled with his collar.

"I'm sorry about my friends."

Dudley's fingers paused on the second button. Seriously? She wanted to have this conversation _now_? "Eh. They were pretty polite about it."

Hermione looked to be on the brink of another morally outraged outburst. "You mean sometimes it's _worse_?"

It was really not what he wanted to be thinking about as he removed his shirt, so he shrugged and continued unbuttoning. "At least I get paid for it."

She bit her lip and watched his fingers work another button loose.

"Look, no one else is here. You don't have to finish. I won't tell Luna."

"Do you not want to see me naked?" He didn't think that he had misread her this badly.

"No! If I were into . . . . watching strangers undress, you're exactly the person I'd pick. I just—" She was getting genuinely agitated. "I've never taken my clothes off in public, but I know what it's like to have people disparaging me for what I look like, what I say, how I say it, what I like . . . . People can be cruel, even when they don't exactly mean it, and getting naked would be the last thing I'd want to do after facing down this lot. You shouldn't have to—"

Dudley felt a strange burst of affection for the woman squirming in her chair out of empathy for him. "I appropria— erm, app—appreciate your concern, but I can— I don't— It's all right." The rest of his buttons couldn't come free fast enough. He'd never been eloquent by any stretch of the word, but he usually had a decent grasp of the English language. When he was flustered, however, the connection between brain and mouth jammed.

Although his brain-mouth link was temporarily out of commission, Dudley's thoughts raced on without pause. He mused how some of his mates whinged about their girlfriends and wives fussing over them and worrying about their feelings. He'd always privately thought it would be nice to have a woman other than his clingy mother do it. Now he wondered if maybe it was best that he didn't, as some stranger getting upset on his behalf reduced him to a barely coherent wreck.

He turned away to shimmy out of his shirt, folded it deliberately, and laid it over his trousers. A deep breath, and another to steady himself, and then he turned back to face her with his chin jutting out and a knot of anxiety tightening in his throat.

Pink stretch marks feathered his torso like hoarfrost, overlaying another filigree pattern gone silver with age. He could read the history of his body in those lines, could map his life onto its rolling topography.

"Oh!" It was a soft, barely audible intake of breath that seemed to illuminate her face from within. She'd been pretty enough before—in a plump, nervous, almost bookish sort of way. Her nerves forgotten, she now radiated a gloriously intense loveliness that took his own breath away. That moment made the entire evening worthwhile—if she said nothing else to encourage the faint hope he had been trying to quash, if he never even saw her again, he would always have this image of her radiant face embossed on his memory.

"So, the concept of beauty has been feminized in recent history, nearly to the exclusion of any possible male application, even though it used to be a universal ideal to be striven for and, in fact, was often the province of the male body. Likewise, handsome has become almost exclusively a masculine descriptor, despite—" She checked the flow of words with rueful effort, although Dudley would have gladly listened to her for the rest of the evening. He had no idea what she was going on about, but it had animated her already glowing face to an exquisite degree. "Sorry, I still sometimes tend to wax pedantic when I'm excited. I just wanted you to know that I mean no offense, that I'm speaking solely in the classical sense when I say that you're beautiful."

He understood that last phrase with perfect comprehension and nearly laughed in embarrassment. He'd been called many things in his life—hell, he'd been called many things in appreciation these last few years (and whoever thought he would ever take "such a fat piggy" as a compliment was fucking _mental_)—but this was new. He'd done enough serious engagements to come to the realisation that, although he was never going to be considered conventionally attractive, there were indeed quite a number of women who were turned on by fat blokes. However, in the context of stripping, most of the appreciation came in the form of groping and offensive propositions that were nearly as violating as the uninvited touching.

Hermione had been right in her assessment of the profession; it was soul-sucking work. The grim weight of it all settled on his shoulders with such unexpected force that it seemed as though it was only her wide-eyed look of wonder that kept him upright.

**~o~o~**

"Would you like a glass of wine?"

Although her impulsive offer obviously startled Hermione, she showed no signs of regretting it. Wine wasn't his inebriating beverage of choice, but Dudley would have gladly choked down vinegar to prolong this strange, beguiling encounter.

While she poured, Hermione suggested that he might be more comfortable dressed. She was still sneaking poorly disguised glances at him (nearly overflowing the wineglasses in the process), so he declined.

"I've spent a lot of my life being looked at with disgust. It's nice to show off to someone who appreciates it." Nicer still to _watch_ her avid appreciation.

He was basking in that appreciation when something caught the edge of his vision. His eyes strayed to investigate before his mind could formulate a warning about curiosity, and he started violently.

Hermione looked behind her anxiously. Ginny had tucked away most of Hermione's wizarding pictures in a drawer, leaving only the motionless photos of her Muggle relations and a large picture of Ron, Harry, and Hermione that she'd charmed into temporary stillness—it was a close-up shot, so their black-robed shoulders could easily have been clad in hoodies. Her stripper—no, _the_ stripper was staring at it in shock, though. Was the charm wearing off? Had Harry started winking and waggling his eyebrows again, or was Ron flashing his jaunty two-fingered salute?

"You know Harry?" Dudley blurted. That was a stupid question. _Know_ Harry? She was apparently friends with him. He looked again at Harry's arm slung around her shoulder. Or maybe more.

"_You_ know Harry?" Hermione's shock mirrored his.

"I— er, we grew up together." Perhaps that was ambiguous enough not to incriminate himself.

She frowned, and his stomach lurched. He didn't know how life had been at that freak school, but he knew all too well that the normal world had been pretty cruel to Harry (and often at his instigation).

"I—" He swallowed. "I wasn't the nicest to him then." _Although he could be a real tosspot and deserved at least some of what he got._ But he couldn't say that to a friend of Harry's.

A sudden pain shot through Dudley's nipples. He glanced down, but there was only his bare chest in view. He could feel the rough hands, though—visible now only to his memory—grabbing, pinching, twisting, _fondling_.

His stomach began to churn in earnest as he came to the sickening realisation that he'd done something similar to Harry. He'd never touched him like that—would never have done that to anyone. He'd nevertheless accomplished much the same effect.

Boxing had felt . . . clean. He was up against boys his own age, in his own weight class, and, if they didn't have quite the same burning desire to punch the living daylights out of him, at least they put up a robust defence. It made going back to the neighbourhood scuffles with his gang unbearably sordid (but bear it he did, as he didn't have the courage to suffer the consequences of the alternative).

Stripping tended to make Dudley turn introspective (far more than pubs or churches ever had). Revulsion with himself welled up in his chest, and he suddenly felt terribly naked. It was daft that he should feel more exposed now than he did ten minutes ago, and yet he wanted to grab his clothing and wrap himself up so tightly that no one would ever touch him again and he would never have to confess what he had done to Harry and to all the other . . . fuck, if he were going to be honest, they were victims (he had _victims_). The four paces to the neat pile of clothes might well have been four miles. He wished he could blame Harry, but when had he ever really had anyone else but himself to blame?

"I lost track of him, after—" He waved his hands uncertainly. Something awful had happened that year, though no one had ever explained to him what it was, and he had no words to describe whatever it was that really inhabited the void in his chronology. "But," he faltered, desperately wishing for some of Harry's magic to come and whisk him away from this wretched situation, "but I wish I could've made it up to him."

"You're Dudley! Harry's cousin." The radiant smile had vanished, never to return once he confirmed her terse accusation.

Dudley nodded dumbly. He was guilty as charged and probably deserved every imprecation she was about to fling in his face.

"I don't know if Harry told us everything you did to him—probably not, knowing him—but what he did tell us made my skin crawl. I wanted to Apparate to your house and hex you and your parents into oblivion."

Shame heated his cheeks and sent a cascade of redness expanding across the still-visible expanses of his skin.

"Harry also told us that, when you and he last parted company, you seemed different, as though a 'change of heart had started to percolate through you,' in his words."

Despite the miserable direction the conversation had taken, Dudley felt the emergence of a fragile bubble of elation. Harry had noticed. It hadn't been the apology he deserved (although, perhaps there wasn't an apology big enough for that), but he'd _noticed_.

"So," Hermione cut in briskly, "did you make good on that promise?"

She was the first person who'd known him before (known _of_ him, anyway) who was willing to even entertain the possibility that he might have changed—that maybe, just _maybe_, he hadn't grown up into the contemptible waste of space his younger self had seemed destined to become.

"Yeah. Well, I dunno if I'm a _good_ person, but at least I'm not the same cunt I was back then." Hermione winced slightly. "Sorry, I mean, I'm different. I— I find it easier being around me . . . living with myself, y'know. I guess I hope other people think so, too, but it's not like I ask."

The stumbling reply seemed to satisfy Hermione. "People can change. Some of us even grow up. Although I never tried to be cruel or spiteful—" She closed her eyes and shuddered. "I'd hate to be judged forever by my eleven-year-old self."

They drank in silence.

**~o~o~**

The wine was gone, and muffled laughter could be heard from the bedroom. Hermione leaned towards Dudley.

"It's not what I would have asked for, and I'm still morally opposed to people selling viewing rights to their bodies, but this was . . . . It was a much better birthday present than I'd expected."

Her birthday. Shit. Dudley groaned. "I already bollixed things up by talking, and now I forgot to deliver the message."

Hermione looked as though she were about to object to him classifying talking to her as a mistake (and, really, that could've come out better—a lot better), but her curiosity had been piqued. "Message?"

"I'm a stripper_gram_. Of course there's a message!"

She arched an eyebrow with a noncommittal, "Oh?"

"It's written on a strip of paper in my boxer flies. You were supposed to unroll it at the end of my act."

Her gaze dropped to his lap and then jerked back to stare fixedly at his face as her already pink complexion darkened steadily to red.

Dudley looked down. Ah. He never was sitting at the end. Usually he just arched his back a bit and guided the recipient's hand to its goal. Now, though, his belly spilled over his thighs and covered all evidence of his flies and the message. He sighed, taking hold of the arms of his chair and preparing to heave himself to his feet to provide her access.

"No!" Startled, Dudley dropped back into his seat as Hermione continued in a more restrained voice, "I think I can find it from here." She hesitated. "If you're comfortable with that?"

She was asking his consent—not just to chivvy him along, but because she really wouldn't proceed if he weren't willing. _That_ was more erotic than any amount of unsolicited tit-flashing or drunken pawing, and he breathlessly offered his assent.

Her palm—cool and soft—came to rest gently over his breastbone, where the arc of his stomach began. He shivered slightly as her hand commenced the descent, shaping itself to the outward swell of his flesh. Then it dropped over the horizon and disappeared from his sight. She delicately insinuated her hand underneath the heavy fold of his belly, the passage slicked by the sweat that had gathered there, and they both were a bit amazed at how much of her forearm disappeared before she reached his waistband.

After a moment's pause, Hermione's hand started its blind search for the tab of paper. "Am I close?" she asked in a hushed whisper.

Dudley gripped the arms of his chair. _He_ was close. "Down a bit," he managed to gasp, driving his tailbone more firmly into the seat cushion to quell the desperate need to roll his hips and thrust up into her palm.

She painstakingly traced the flap of silk along his erection, which was doing its valiant best to trap her hand against the pliant weight above.

Much too quickly—or not quickly enough? (his muddled brain couldn't sort out up from down, much less make a judgment of that magnitude)—Hermione located the free end of the message. She began the slow extraction, and his body momentarily decided that vision was an extraneous sense as the paper slithered out against the sensitive underside of his paunch.

_Wit beyond measure is one of your treasures,_

_But without leisure you'll miss all life's pleasures._

Hermione was still smiling and shaking her head at Luna's handwritten message when Dudley returned to himself. His cock was demanding a hurried trip back to his flat and a frantic wank, but _he_ wanted to spend some more time with Hermione, and he was damned if he was going to be beholden to his cock.

"Want to go for an Indian? I think I saw one just round the corner." He immediately wished he could retract the offer and come up with something better, as he had noted the take-away cartons scattered around the room, but it was too late.

"You haven't eaten yet?" Hermione asked in concern.

"Well, I ate a bit before I came—otherwise my stomach makes rude noises while I'm performing—but I'm hungry again."

She smiled with unfeigned pleasure and simply said, "They do a good chicken korma."

She offered him her hand, and he took it, and it was only when they had reached the door that Dudley's state of undress registered with either of them. Dudley grinned sheepishly, Hermione giggled, and when he reached for his shirt, the only thought in his mind was that this must be how the beginning of a happy ending should feel.


End file.
